The Courtyard

The reviews are true...if you love Binchy and Pilcher, you'll love this book. Truly a treat...didn't want to put it down to go to sleep and couldn't wait to pick it up again. I immediately went on the Internet to learn more about the author and find more books by Marcia Willett. Grab your "cuppa" and settle in for a great read!

This is another of Marcia Willett's masterpieces. The characters are very real, you either like them or you don't. Just like real life. And many of the characters you have met before ( or will later in other of her fine books). I especially loved how Gussie loved God and wasn't ashamed, I loved how Gillian "grew up" in the book and realized the mistakes she had made and how the lovely Henry forgave her. Wonderful story of love and life!

The gentle measured pace of all Marcia Willett novels belie her strong, beautiful stories of human nature, and The Courtyard is no exception. Beginning with a chance meeting between a down-on-her-luck elderly woman and a beautiful young wife, the plot moves at a gentle British pace to include all manor of things, from bad marriages to blackmail to young love to severe financial anguish. And yet, all is told as a slow, meandering brook in the lovely country side Willett so beautifully describes. Nell Woodward, the heroine of the story, is a gentle and sweet wife and mother when we first meet her--but we quickly learn that all is not what it seems, and as her life widens to include an entire "village" of entertwined characters, we see how truly no one IS an island; lives mesh and unmesh together as people move forward in the best ways they know how. I cannot recommend this charming, beautiful novel highly enough. Do yourself a favor and give it a try.

The Courtyard is an excellent book, beautifully written, vivid, and evocative. The characters come alive, and so do their lives. The reader ends up caring deeply about them, hoping that all will turn out well. One of the huge advantages to Marcia Willett's books, incidentally, is that characters from her novels tend to show up in subsequent novels, so the reader really has a chance to "see what happens." It is about time that her books were published, in order, in the United States. The first of her books was First Friends, second is A Friend of the Family (called Thea's Parrot in England), and third is The Courtyard. I look forward to more of the books being issued in the lovely editions shared by the first three!

Augusta Merton may be Marcia Willett's greatest creation of her many great characters. She is elderly, alone, and poor when we meet her in an English teashop on the first page of this compelling story. Elegant enough to pause for tea in a nice shop but too poor to afford a piece of cake with her tea, Gussie finds an unlikely friend that day in the much younger Nell Woodward. Little did they know on that day, but the two would share a lifetime of triumphs and tragedies thanks to a second-hand dress and a borrowed hat. A large English estate with stable buildings that are being converted into cottages is the setting for this multi-layered drama. Adultery, deception, death, despair, and redemption all play important roles in this, but it is the characters who give the work such a rich depth and make the reader anxious to turn the pages and discover what could possibly happen next. Some of those who will intrigue you are: Henry, the altruistic lord of the manor; Gillian, his spoiled and selfish wife who learns a lot about life; John, the former navy man now finding his way in real estate ventures; Guy, the son of Kate Webster from previous novels, who finds a home in the courtyard; Elizabeth, the career woman with a few regrets; her best friend Lydia who is also Gillian's mother; and, of course, Gussie and Nell, who propel the plot and whose lives are the focus of a great part of the story.